Silver Negative On NBA Expansion To Seattle

David Stern might be retired, but his successor, Adam Silver, is as bleak as Stern was over the prospects of Seattle rejoining the NBA any time soon. In comments to ESPN.com Wednesday, the new commissioner said expansion remains off the table, indicating that the league wants to stay with 30 teams so that the revenue each receives from the new TV deal will not be diluted.

The NBA’s current TV contracts expire in 2016.

“Seattle is a wonderful market,” Silver told ESPN’s Brian Windhorst. “But we’re not planning on expanding right now, so it’s not a function of price.”

Silver said that he and the owners are not only concerned about smaller shares of national and international TV money for each club that would result from expansion, but the dilution in talent.

“Is this the right time to add another 15 to 30 players to the league?” Silver asked Windhorst. “Ultimately, I’m responsible for the financial and competitive health of a 30-team league and, while we made tremendous strides in the last collective bargaining agreement, we’re still not there yet.

“We don’t have 30 profitable teams in the NBA and, while we’ve made progress, there are still teams that aren’t competitive enough.”

Noting that Seattle investors Chris Hansen and Steve Ballmer were willing to commit large dollars last year — $420 million to purchase the Sacramento Kings, a $115 million relocation fee and $200 million to repay bonds issued for a proposed new arena – Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban predicted via Windhorst that Seattle will one day receive an expansion franchise.

YourThoughts

jafabian

This just shows how Stern is still in charge. It’s not about adding players, it’s about adding a market. A market that won the Super Bowl, had over 700,000 people show their support in a parade planned in a few days, averages 40,000 for the Sounders, 21,000 for an MLB team that hasn’t been very good and over 58,000 for Husky football last year. Nielsen predicts the Seattle-Tacoma market ratings rankings will be between 12-13 for the 2013-2014 season. If the NBA doesn’t want to be here, fine. In fact they probably figure they can’t compete with the Seahawks and Sounders right now.

I wouldn’t overreact too much to this. The new TV deal hasn’t been completed yet. When that happens, people will be singing a different tune. If you look more at how it was said than what Silver said, it’s really not so bad. Unlike Stern, he isn’t naming a bunch of cities with Seattle in a dismissive breath. The NBA will be back in the area in the next few years. As Cuban said, the amount of money from Hansen and Ballmer is going to be too much to ignore.

Paul Riden

I would rather support a league that wants to be here, than beg for one that does not. Come on NHL !

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